The present invention relates to expandable retractors for use in surgery. More particularly, the present invention relates to mechanical selectively expandable retractors for moving subsurface tissue in surgery performed percutaneously through a stab incision for performing minimally invasive surgical techniques.
Traditional open surgical procedures performed on locations deep within the body can cause significant trauma to the intervening tissues. Such procedures often require along incision, extensive muscle stripping, prolonged retraction of tissues, denervation and devascularication of tissue. These traditional open surgeries can require extensive operating time and extensive post-operative recovery time, and in some cases, can lead to permanent scarring and more severe pain to the patient.
Accordingly minimally invasive surgical procedures are preferred. Such minimal access procedures utilize a device to expose the operative field with a minimum of trauma to surrounding tissues, most notably musculature. These minimal access devices or retractors generally rely on splitting muscle planes to reach desired operative fields. Accordingly, this minimally invasive approach is more desirable than standard surgical operations which rely on stripping musculature off its attachments. It is an object of the present invention to provide a retractor for minimally invasive surgery which eliminates the requirement of multiple steps to dilate the musculature, or most notably eliminates the requirement or use of a “tube over tube” sequential dilation system, as well as the elimination of the adaptation and use of standard retractor systems for minimal access surgery.